Ethics Part 1 Concerning God
Appendix

E1:
APPENDIX.
--In the foregoing I have explained the nature and properties of God. I
have shown that he necessarily exists, that he is one: that he is, and
acts solely by the necessity of his own nature; that he is the
free cause
of all things, and how he is so; that all things are in God, and so depend
on him, that without him they could neither exist nor be conceived;
lastly, that all things are predetermined by God, not through his
free will
or absolute fiat, but from the very nature of God or
infinite power.
I have further, where occasion
offered, taken care to remove the
prejudices, which might impede the comprehension of my demonstrations. Yet
there still remain misconceptions not a few, which might and may prove
very grave hindrances to the understanding of the concatenation of things,
as I have explained it above. I have therefore thought it worth while to
bring these misconceptions before the bar of
reason.
All such opinions spring from the notion commonly entertained, that all
things in nature act as men themselves act, namely, with an end in view.
It is accepted as certain, that God himself directs all things to a
definite goal (for it is said that God made all things for man, and man
that he might worship him).
I will, therefore, consider this opinion,
asking [1.] first, why it obtains
general credence, and why all men are
naturally so prone to adopt it? [2.]
secondly, I will point out its
falsity;
and, [3.] lastly, I will show how it has given rise to
prejudices about good and bad, right and wrong,
praise and
blame, order and confusion, beauty
and ugliness, and the like.
[1r.] However, this is not the place to deduce these
misconceptions from the nature of the
human mind: it will be sufficient
here, if I assume as a starting point, what ought to be universally
admitted, namely, that all men are born ignorant of the causes of things,
that all have the desire to seek for what is useful to them, and that they
are conscious of such desire.
Herefrom it follows, first, that men think
themselves free
[free will]
inasmuch as they are conscious of their
volitions and
desires, and never even dream, in their ignorance, of the causes which
have disposed them so to wish and desire. Secondly, that men do all things
for an end, namely, for that which is useful to them, and which they seek.
Thus it comes to pass that they only look for a knowledge of the final
causes of events, and when these are learned, they are content, as having
no cause for further doubt. If they cannot learn such causes from external
sources, they are compelled to turn to considering themselves, and
reflecting what end would have induced them personally to bring about the
given event, and thus they necessarily judge other natures by their own.
Further, as they find in
themselves and outside themselves many means
which assist them not a little in their search for what is useful, for
instance, eyes for seeing, teeth for chewing, herbs and animals for
yielding food, the sun for giving light, the sea for breeding fish, etc.,
they come to look on the whole of nature as a means for obtaining such
conveniences. Now as they are aware, that they found these conveniences
and did not make them, they think they have cause for believing, that some
other being has made them for their use. As they look upon things as
means, they cannot believe them to be self-created; but, judging from the
means which they are accustomed to prepare for themselves, they are bound
to believe in some ruler or rulers of the universe endowed with human
freedom, who have arranged and adapted everything for human use.
They are
bound to estimate the nature of such rulers (having no information on the
subject) in accordance with their own nature, and therefore they assert
that the gods ordained everything for the use of man, in order to bind man
to themselves and obtain from him the highest honour. Hence also it
follows, that everyone thought out for himself, according to his
abilities, a different way of worshipping God, so that God might love him
more than his fellows, and direct, the whole course of nature for the
satisfaction of his blind cupidity and insatiable
avarice. Thus the
prejudice developed into
superstition,
and took deep root in the human mind;
and for this reason everyone strove most zealously to understand and
explain the final causes of things;
but in their endeavour to show that
nature does nothing in vain, i.e., nothing which is useless to man, they
only seem to have demonstrated that nature, the gods, and men are all mad
together. Consider, I pray you, the result: among the many helps of nature
they were bound to find some hindrances, such as storms, earthquakes,
diseases, etc.: so they declared that such things happen, because the gods
are angry at some wrong done them by men, or at some fault committed in
their worship. Experience day by day protested and showed by infinite
examples, that good and evil fortunes fall to the lot of pious and impious
alike; still they would not abandon their inveterate prejudice, for it was
more easy for them to class such contradictions among other unknown things
of whose use they were ignorant, and thus to retain their actual and
innate condition of ignorance, than to destroy the whole fabric of their
reasoning and start afresh.
They therefore laid down as an axiom, that
God's judgments far transcend human understanding. Such a doctrine might
well have sufficed to conceal the truth from the human race for all
eternity, if mathematics had not furnished another standard of verity in
considering solely the essence and properties of figures without regard to
their final causes. There are other reasons (which I need not mention
here) besides mathematics, which might have caused men's minds to be
directed to these general prejudices, and have led them to the knowledge
of the truth.
[2r.] I have now
sufficiently explained my first point. There is no need to
show at length, that nature has no particular goal in view, and that final
causes are mere human figments. This, I think, is already evident enough,
both from the causes and foundations on which I have shown such prejudice
to be based, and also from E1P16, and the
E1P32C1, and, in fact, all
those propositions in which I have shown, that everything in nature
proceeds from a sort of necessity, and with the utmost
perfection.
However, I will add a few remarks,
in order to overthrow this doctrine of
a final cause utterly. That which is really a cause it considers as an
effect, and vice versa: it makes that which is by nature first to be last,
and that which is highest and most perfect to be most imperfect.
Passing
over the questions of cause and priority as self-evident, it is plain from
E1P21, E1P22,
E1P23 that that effect is most perfect which is
produced immediately by God; the effect which requires for its production
several intermediate causes is, in that respect, more imperfect. But if
those things which were made immediately by God were made to enable him to
attain his end, then the things which come after, for the sake of which
the first were made, are necessarily the most excellent of all.
Further, this doctrine does away
with the perfection of God: for, if
God acts for an object, he necessarily desires something which he lacks.
Certainly, theologians and metaphysicians draw a distinction between the
object of want and the object of assimilation; still they confess that God
made all things for the sake of himself, not for the sake of creation.
They are unable to point to anything prior to creation, except God
himself, as an object for which God should act, and are therefore driven
to admit (as they clearly must), that God lacked those things for whose
attainment he created means, and further that he desired them.
We must not omit to notice that the
followers of this doctrine, anxious
to display their talent in assigning final causes, have imported a new
method of argument in proof of their theory--namely, a reduction, not to
the impossible, but to ignorance; thus showing that they have no other
method of exhibiting their doctrine.
For example, if a stone falls from a
roof on to someone's head, and kills him, they will demonstrate by their
new method, that the stone fell in order to kill the man; for, if it had
not by God's will fallen with that object, how could so many circumstances
(and there are often many concurrent circumstances) have all happened
together by chance? Perhaps you will answer that the event is due to the
facts that the wind was blowing, and the man was walking that way. "But
why," they will insist, "was the wind blowing, and why was the man at
that very time walking that way?" If you again answer, that the wind had
then sprung up because the sea had begun to be agitated the day before,
the weather being previously calm, and that the man had been invited by a
friend, they will again insist: "But why was the sea agitated, and why
was the man invited at that time?" So they will pursue their questions
from cause to cause, till at last you take refuge in the will of God--in
other words, the sanctuary of ignorance.
So, again, when they survey the
frame of the human body, they are amazed; and being ignorant of the causes
of so great a work of art, conclude that it has been fashioned, not
mechanically, but by divine and supernatural skill, and has been so put
together that one part shall not hurt another.
Hence anyone who seeks for the true
causes of miracles,
and strives to
understand natural phenomena as an intelligent being, and not to gaze at
them like a fool, is set down and denounced as an impious heretic by
those, whom the masses adore as the interpreters of nature and the gods.
Such persons know that, with the removal of ignorance, the
wonder which
forms their only available means for proving and preserving their
authority would vanish also. But I now quit this, subject, and pass on to
my third point.
[3r.] After men
persuaded themselves, that everything which is created is
created for their sake, they were bound to consider as the chief quality
in everything that which is most useful to themselves, and to account
those things the best of all which have the most beneficial effect on
mankind. Further, they were bound to form
abstract notions for the
explanation of the nature of things, such as goodness, badness, order,
confusion, warmth, cold, beauty, deformity, and so on; and from the belief
that they are free agents arose the further notions
praise and
blame, sin
and merit.
I will speak of these latter hereafter, when I treat of human nature;
the former I will briefly explain here.
Everything which conduces to health
and the worship of God they have
called good, everything which hinders these objects they have styled bad;
and inasmuch as those who do not understand the nature of things do not
verify phenomena in any way, but merely imagine them after a fashion, and
mistake their imagination
for understanding,
such persons firmly believe
that there is an order in things, being really ignorant both of things and
their own nature. When phenomena are of such a kind, that the impression
they make on our senses requires little effort of
imagination, and can
consequently be easily remembered, we say that they are well-ordered; if
the contrary, that they are ill-ordered or confused.
Further, as things
which are easily imagined are more pleasing to us, men prefer order to
confusion--as though there were any order in nature, except in relation to
our imagination--
and say that God has created all things in order; thus,
without knowing it, attributing imagination to God, unless, indeed, they
would have it that God foresaw human imagination, and arranged everything,
so that it should be most easily imagined. If this be their theory, they
would not, perhaps, be daunted by the fact that we find an infinite number
of phenomena, far surpassing our imagination, and very many others which
confound its weakness. But enough has been said on this subject.
The other
abstract
notions are nothing but modes of imagining, in which the
imagination
is differently affected, though they are considered by the
ignorant as the chief attributes of things, inasmuch as they believe that
everything was created for the sake of themselves; and, according as they
are affected by it, style it good or bad, healthy or rotten and corrupt.
For instance, if the motion which objects we see communicate to our nerves
be conducive to health, the objects causing it are styled beautiful; if a
contrary motion be excited, they are styled ugly.
Things which are perceived through our sense of smell are styled
fragrant or fetid; if through our taste, sweet or bitter, full-flavoured
or insipid; if through our touch, hard or soft, rough or smooth, etc.
Whatsoever affects our ears is said to give rise to noise, sound, or
harmony. In this last case, there are men lunatic enough to believe, that
even God himself takes pleasure in harmony; and philosophers are not
lacking who have persuaded themselves, that the motion of the heavenly
bodies gives rise to harmony--
all of which instances sufficiently show
that everyone judges of things according to the state of his brain, or
rather mistakes for things the forms of his
imagination.
We need no longer
wonder that there have arisen all the controversies we have witnessed, and
finally scepticism: for, although human bodies in many respects agree, yet
in very many others they differ; so that what seems good to one seems bad
to another; what seems well ordered to one seems confused to another; what
is pleasing to one displeases another, and so on.
I need not further
enumerate, because this is not the place to treat the subject at length,
and also because the fact is sufficiently well known. It is commonly said:
" So many men, so many minds; everyone is wise in his own way; brains
differ as completely as palates." All of which proverbs show, that men
judge of things according to their mental disposition, and rather imagine
than understand: for, if they understood phenomena, they would, as
mathematics attest, be convinced, if not attracted, by what I have urged.
We have now perceived, that all
the explanations commonly given of
nature are mere modes of imagining, and do not indicate the true nature of
anything, but only the constitution of the
imagination;
and, although they
have names, as though they were entities, existing externally to the
imagination, I call them entities imaginary rather than real; and,
therefore, all arguments against us drawn from such
abstractions are
easily rebutted.
Many argue in this way. If all
things follow from a necessity of the
absolutely perfect nature of God, why are there so many imperfections in
nature? such, for instance, as things corrupt to the point of putridity,
loathsome deformity, confusion, evil, sin, etc.
But these reasoners are, as
I have said, easily confuted, for the
perfection of things is to be
reckoned only from their own nature and power; things are not more or less
perfect, according as they delight or offend human senses, or according as
they are serviceable or repugnant to mankind.
To those who ask why God did
not so create all men, that they should be governed only by reason, I give
no answer but this: because matter was not lacking to him for the creation
of every degree of perfection from highest to lowest; or, more strictly,
because the
laws of his nature
are so vast, as to suffice for the
production of everything conceivable by an infinite intelligence, as I
have shown in E1P16.
Such are the misconceptions I
have undertaken to note; if there are any
more of the same sort, everyone may easily dissipate them for himself with
the aid of a little reflection.